Despite the realization of many new and exciting digital technologies, much of the digital world's power remains strictly divorced from physical reality. For example, while the Internet provides ready access to vast stores of information, that information is typically analyzed and assessed without direct reference to the real-world people and objects it may impact. Real world environments are instead indirectly reflected in digital data, a form generally unsuitable for interacting with that environment. Consequently, a user desiring to interface the digital and real-world realms must often convert real-world data into a form manageable by the digital system and vice versa. Measurements are taken by hand and compared with online listings before furniture is purchased. Conversations occur via awkward chat interfaces, forcing participants to adopt artificial protocols and greetings absent from any real-world interaction. Rather than technology adapting to the end user, end users regularly adapt to the technology, developing a facility for keyboards, mice, joysticks, touchscreens and other unnatural interfaces.
The digital-reality divide is not only experienced by end users, but is also felt by developers. For example, as video game designers have no ready means to identify a user's real-world environment, they design their games to be played exclusively within the artificial confines of the user device. Even sophisticated movie studios often resort to placing their actors in complicated and uncomfortable suits to motion capture real-world performances for subsequent manipulation at a digital console.
While some efforts have been made to provide an “augmented reality” (AR) experience, these past efforts typically require that the real-world environment be again adapted to the needs of the technology (rather than the other way around). For example, these applications may require the placement of a real-world beacon, pattern, texture, or physical marker on a surface which an imaging device can then recognize and project synthetic objects upon or in relation thereto. But, as with the methods described above, this approach again imposes demands upon the real-world rather than having the technology adapt to reality.
Ideally, a user or a developer should not adapt their behavior to their technology, but may instead passively and only semi-actively apply their technology in their day-to-day real world activities. Accordingly, there exists a need for systems and methods facilitating a less onerous approach to applying digital resources to real-world situations.
While the flow and sequence diagrams presented herein show an organization designed to make them more comprehensible by a human reader, those skilled in the art will appreciate that actual data structures used to store this information may differ from what is shown, in that they, for example, may be organized in a different manner; may contain more or less information than shown; may be compressed and/or encrypted; etc.
The headings provided herein are for convenience only and do not necessarily affect the scope or meaning of the embodiments. Further, the drawings have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be expanded or reduced to help improve the understanding of the embodiments. Similarly, some components and/or operations may be separated into different blocks or combined into a single block for the purposes of discussion of some of the embodiments. Moreover, while the various embodiments are amenable to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments have been shown by way of example in the drawings and are described in detail below. The intention, however, is not to limit the particular embodiments described. On the contrary, the embodiments are intended to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the scope of the disclosed embodiments.